Given the Chance

Given the Chance is one of our longest running and most effective employment support programs.

Given the Chance is a set of programs designed to assist marginalised job seekers into work, support employers to grow and diversify their workforce, and foster social benefit and inclusion in workplace communities.

An initiatives of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Given the Chance is being rolled out nationally to meet the demands of employers, matching them with potential employees in a professional, personalised and fully supported way.

Features

Traineeships and apprenticeships provide on the job experience, coupled with essential qualifications for future employment, and usually include pre-vocational training.

Labour hire provides job seekers with much needed Australian workplace experience, while allowing employers time to identify whether they may be suitable for longer term employment.

A relationship manager is appointed to support supervisors, field questions and identify further support where needed.

The Building Bridges Cultural Awareness training helps develop manager skills to assist with employees' integration into the workplace and provides practical tools and information to help navigate cultural differences that may arise.

Each employee is appointed a field officer to help navigate the transition to employment.

Employers can also access wider Brotherhood services to support new and existing employees, including support to boost English skills and micro finance assistance.

Who is eligible

We work with the long-term unemployed; young people; mature-aged people; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders; asylum seekers, refugees and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Our Given the Chance Jobs Victoria employment program is a service for disadvantaged jobseekers, who live in large parts of Melbourne, including the western, northern and south-eastern suburbs, and on the Mornington Peninsula.

One group assisted under this program is asylum seekers. We formerly supported this group through our Given the Chance for Asylum Seekers program which ran from 2013 to the end of June 2018, assisting 521 people into employment thanks to funding from a generous philanthropist. Read more about the program (PDF, 1085KB).

Crossing Bridges to employment

This is a new recruitment process for the business administration traineeships that are offered by the Given The Chance program. To learn more about the guidelines and selection criteria visit the Crossing Bridges to Employment page.

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